That One Day at the Park
by 13luckystars
Summary: Brusnop. Ben and Danny met at the park when they were kids and then never saw each other again.


Some people are so unlucky that they find someone that they think they can be close to, only to have said person disappear. It might not be the persons fault, but it may make the person think that something went wrong, that they jumped the gun. That probably isn't the case, but it happens all the time, and that's how it went with me.

Let me tell you about it.

I was ten when it happened. As cheesy as it sounds to say that I felt an instant friendship with the boy I met at the park, it was true. At school I was really unpopular and struggled to find friends, so when I met someone who did seem to like me, well I was relieved.

My parents had forced me to go to the park, thinking that maybe I would meet someone. When we got there, my parents sat down on a bench to read and I went to the swings on the opposite side of the park. That way they wouldn't be able to see me being my normal, anti-social self.

After I had been swinging for about half an hour, a ginger haired boy came and joined me at the swings. He asked if he could swing next to me, and I told him that he could. I had no control over which swing he swung on after all.

He sat and swung next to me for a while, giggling every once in a while. I had no clue what was so funny, but I didn't ask.

"My names Danny, what's yours?" he asked me, giggling as he did so.

"Ben."

"It's nice to meet you Ben."

I nodded and he started giggling again.

"What's so funny Danny?"

"Nothing, it's just some guys told me that you were a freak. I was thinking about how stupid they are."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't think you're a freak. They are more freaks than you are."

"Thanks Danny."

He smiled at me. "You're welcome Ben. Why are you over here by yourself?"

"Uh, I don't have any friends."

"Of course you do!"

I looked at him, feeling very confused. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm your friend!"

The smile that Danny had given me then was the type that you couldn't not give back. I guess I wasn't the only one that felt the friendship.

Over the next few hours, Danny and I swung and talked. He was about a year younger than me, about as popular as I was, and he went to the same school I did. He said he had heard his parents talking about money problems, and the possibility of moving. He said that he hadn't minded the thought of moving, it would mean a new start for him, maybe some new friends, even though it would also mean moving away from family and everything he knew.

"They haven't told me anything for sure, so maybe it won't happen," he told me, looking like he knew that it probably would happen.

Danny asked me about my family so I told him about my sister Bex, and my parents. By that time, I had started feeling so comfortable with him, that I told him about everything I tried not to think about. I told Danny about all the fighting between my parents, the nights when I would wake up to find my dad sleeping on the couch, and all the times my parents would fight and then not to see one of them for days.

"I-I'm…"

I stopped him before he could say anything. I didn't want him to say that he was sorry.

"Ben!" I heard my mum yell.

"Danny!" his mum yelled seconds later.

Danny looked at me, "Meet me here tomorrow?"

I nodded and we both ran towards our parents' voices.

The next day, I begged my parents to take me back to the park. They didn't understand why I wanted to go so bad, but they took me anyway. I didn't hear the end of it though. Throughout the whole ride, they asked if I had met a friend there. Even though I stayed silent, they didn't let up.

"Come back in two hours Ben!" my mum yelled as I ran toward the swings.

I had hoped that Danny would be there already so I wouldn't have to wait, but he wasn't there.

Two hours later, Danny hadn't shown up. I begged my parents to bring me back the next day.

Every day for two weeks my parents took me back to the park. I left messaged in the sand, and sticky notes on the poles of the swings, hoping that Danny might reply. Over those two weeks, I got no reply so I decided to just stop hoping. Danny was never going to come back and I was just going to have to get over it. I just wanted to know why.

…

In what seemed to be in a blink of an eye, I was seventeen. I still wasn't popular, but I had accumulated some friends. Sometimes I still thought about Danny, coming out as homosexual had brought different thoughts along, but I tried my hardest to push them away. Now I had friends and I needed to focus on school, a 'what could have happened with Danny' should have been lower on my list of important things to think about.

"Ben," my mother said when I got downstairs before going to school, "How's everything going?"

I smiled at her. "Everything's great."

"I'm glad, I was really worried about you for a while."

After my parents had gotten a divorce, I was thirteen, I had started pulling away from them. My mum had taken me to therapists, just trying to get me to talk. Everyone I had been to prescribed me some sort of anti-depressants. I had to agree with them that I had fell into depression. Neither of my parents really wanted to admit that their divorce had sparked it, even though therapist after therapist had told them, so my parents still tended to play dumb and say they were worried now that I was better.

Right as I was going to walk out the door, my mum, called my name again.

"You're not doing anything after school today, are you?"

I shook my head. "Do I ever do anything after school?"

I didn't wait for my mum to reply. If I did, I would be late for school, and that couldn't happen.

…

"Hey Ben," Sam said, talking up to walk with me to lunch.

"Do you have anything planned for after school?"

"I would tell you no, but I have a feeling that I do."

"What in the world does that mean?"

Sam and I took our spots with two of our other friends, Cameron and James, before I answered.

"Before I left this morning, my mum asked me if I had anything planned. I got the feeling that she has something planned and I am involved."

Sam looked disappointed by this.

"Why? What did you have planned?" I asked.

"I've been trying to figure out a date for a double date, but the guy I found only had today opened."

"So you were trying to set me up?"

All three of my friends blushed and took deep interest in their lunches.

"Ben, we know about Danny, but you were ten and he was nine. That's way before people start figuring out who they really are."

I sighed. I knew what Sam said was right, the Danny I hung out with for a few hours could be completely different now. He could be a nerd, a rebel, a jock, I had no clue. And really, I have no clue what he was really like when he was nine. Sure he was nice at the park, but that could have just been a front, even though I didn't really think nine year olds were all that good at using fronts.

"What was this guy like?"

Sam smiled. "You're actually interesting in a guy that isn't nine?" Sam's eyes widened at what he just said. "Holy crap that makes you sound like a pervert!"

Narrowing my eyes at Sam I said, "I don't think of a nine year old like that, I've came up with what he would look like now."

He stuck his tongue out at me. "You still seem like a perv."

Sam continued on to tell me about this guy that he thought would be perfect for me. Part of me hoped that a coincidence would happen and this guy would end up being Danny. That didn't happen. The guy Sam described seemed great, totally my type, but I wasn't feeling it. I didn't voice that, I knew if I did Sam would just roll his eyes and tell me I was still crushing on a nine year old. I guess part of me still was, but that part of me was ten years old.

Finally I got kind of tired of listening to Sam make this guy out to be close to a god.

"Okay Sam, if you can set a date that will work, I'll go out with this guy."

That finally got Sam off my back for the time being.

…

"Mum, I'm home!" I yelled as soon as I got into the door.

I could smell food, delicious food by the way, so I knew my mum, must be in the kitchen. I didn't know why, usually I just microwave things for dinner, and we pretty much never have guests. Whatever she was making though, smelled so good that I didn't even bother taking my school stuff upstairs.

"What are you making? It smells great."

She smiled. "We have guests coming in about an hour, I suggest you go change."

"What's wrong with what I've got on?"

"Fine," she said with a sigh, "Keep what you've got on and go take a shower."

With a sigh of my own, I walked to my room and turned on the shower. Only then did I realize she hadn't told me what she was making.

I wondered vaguely who our guests were. Obviously my mum wasn't having a date over to the house if I was being included. It could be a friend from work, but as far as I knew my mum didn't like most of the people she worked with. I thought that maybe it could have been someone she knew from when my parents were married, many of them had come over before, so that led to wondering who it would be.

I heard the doorbell ring. How long have I been in the shower? I thought, putting a towel around my waist. I hoped my mum or Bex could get the door for once, but got dressed quickly just in case they decided I should still have to get it.

"Ben! Someone's here for you!" Bex yelled, I vaguely realized that she sounded quite excited.

"If it's a family member I'm going to smack someone," I said as I ran to the door.

When I opened the door, I thought that the guy standing there looked familiar. Shaggy, ginger hair, a familiar smile. The guy looked like someone that I should've known, but I just couldn't place him.

"Hi, uh just follow me to the kitchen."

The older woman standing with the teenager smiled brightly at me. My guess was she was his mother.

"Do you know who I am?" the guy asked me, poking me in the shoulder.

I shook my head. "I know that I knew you, you're really familiar, I just don't know who you are."

"I'm Danny."

"Holy crap!" I said, not even caring when my mum gave me a dirty look for saying crap/ "You're nine year old Danny from the park?"

"Yeah," he said with a smile on his face.

"I can't believe it! What happened?"

"Ben?" my mum said, looking at me like I had forgotten something. "Why don't you and Danny go talk in the living room?"

I pulled Danny into the living room as fast as I could. I didn't want to wait to find out what happened, I wanted to know now.

"Okay, so I had every intention of going back to the park."

"Okay, then what happened?"

"I told you that I had thought my parents were going to move, well when we got back home our house was packed up and my parents told me we were moving to Denver, Colorado. I tried to get them to let me go back to the park and leave you a note, explaining what had happened, but they said the park was not on our route to our new home."

I put my hand on Danny's arm. "I knew there would be a reason."

Danny looked into my face, searching my expression to try to tell if I was angry. "What did you do?"

"I went to the park every day at the same time for two weeks. I checked everywhere just in case you left me a note. I left you post-it notes and writings in the sand."

"I'm sorry Ben."

"Don't be Danny."

My mum called us in for dinner then. Danny and I walked into the kitchen to see both our mums and my sister in an intense argument.

"Do you want to eat inside?" I asked Danny, hoping he would say yes so we could get out of their way.

Danny's eyes widened when we heard both of our names in their argument. "Let's go."

When we got outside with our food, we sat down at our table, sitting on the same side. Danny told me about his life in Denver, how it wasn't much different than his life here had been. He told me how he did end up getting new friends, but how he had also had a hard time when everyone found out something about him. Before I could ask what everyone had found out, he decided to change the subject. Danny asked me about how my life had gone over the past few years, if anything I had thought would happen happened.

"Well, my parents got a divorce, I became depressed, went to a ton of different therapists, and came out as a homosexual."

I hadn't meant to say the last part, I had been going to keep that to myself, it had just come out. My eyes widened as I said it. If anything, I thought that Danny would tell him mum he wanted to leave now.

"You like guys?" Danny asked after a few minutes of eating in silence.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Uh, yeah."

"I don't want to leave if that's what you're thinking. That's exactly what everyone at my school found out about me."

"You like guys too?"

"Yeah, my dad wasn't exactly happy about it."

"My dad doesn't know."

Danny took my hand and I didn't know what to do or think. Sure I had kind of fallen for him, but that was ten year old me falling for nine year old him. I didn't know what he was really like now, all I knew was that I had liked him. He did seem a lot like me though.

Leaning my head on Danny's shoulder, I realized that I didn't care. I had a chance to get to know him, and that was what I was going to do. Even if I ended up hating him I could still say I gave him a chance.

When our mothers walked out of the house, neither of us moved, and neither of them bothered us.


End file.
